Hot Tuna: 50+ Years of Flavor Freshness

Casady digs in onstage with his goldtop signature Epiphone while Kaukonen strums his Gibson SST acoustic-electric in front of his
Louis Electric Amplifiers KR12 half-stack.
Photo by Barry Berenson

I’m delighted with every single
track—and I’ve rarely felt that
way after a record. In the
past, I’ve gone home and been
unable to listen to the record
because I either second-guessed
myself or the record took a
direction I wasn’t happy with.
This time, though, I walked
out and listened to it. I think
everyone in the band did a great
job on every song. And with
Larry Campbell’s help, I can’t
remember having so much fun
and getting such concise, grooving
results on every song.

What do you think was the
key to things going that well?

You have to have the foundation
in the songs. If you have
secure underpinnings of the
song and a groove, the other
parts flow—including Jorma’s
singing, which is the best I’ve
heard him sing. I brought music
in for one song and Jorma came
up with lyrics in the studio. It
was amazing to watch. Music is
the only art form where artists
come together to work on the
same piece. Can you imagine
five painters working on the
same canvas?
Your playing is very responsive
and improvisational.

I try to reach a balance between
diverting the river to make it
unique and never losing the
groove at the expense of a lick
or finger exercise. You always
have to test that balance to create
something new, while also
trying to capture the essential
atmosphere of the song and not
leave it until the last note.
What do you do to pull everything
together like that?

You listen objectively to the
song from the outside, and then,
inside the song, subjectively
play off the other musicians and
work to make the whole sound
unified and consistent. Each
song is like opening a door and
walking into a room, and each
night is a unique creation. You’re
always trying to play the song
better, but “better” doesn’t mean
playing it the same night after
night—it means getting to the
essence. Some songs might have
a vignette or a lick—a recognizable
aspect that you don’t want
to lose—but if the song changes,
you have to be ready to adapt.

What do you look for in your
bass tone?

I look for a good transition from
my hands, through the instrument,
and through the amplifier.
If I’m playing over the pickup,
I want a nice, tight midrange
sound. Up on the neck, I want
more of a standup-bass sound.
And behind the pickup, I can get
some gank. I measure my sound
against the dynamic response
of an acoustic instrument, with
the conciseness of an electric. I
heard acoustic instruments first,
so I always measure my electric
sound against the sound you can
get from a standup bass. I sat
in front of jazz guys like Charles
Mingus and Scott LaFaro, and I
was always amazed at the diversity
of sound coming from the
same instrument played by different
people.

Tone is something you’ve
obviously given a lot of consideration
to. What’s your
beacon for tone?

I’ve gone full-circle on basses.
After beginning on passive hollowbodies,
experimenting with
active electronics, and using
solidbodies, I’m back to passive
hollowbodies. One of the
things about active electronics
is that your tone is less about
your hands and more about the
miniature preamp. So when I
developed my signature bass with
Epiphone, I wanted to make it
a bass guitar that had acoustic
properties but would record really
well. I wanted the bass to have
one fat-sounding, low-impedance
pickup, which gives you a greater
dynamic range. I focused on
how many windings it had, the
strength of the alnico magnets,
and finding a good preamp,
power amp, and speakers.

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